


Of Matches and Dates

by angelaiswriting



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29397132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelaiswriting/pseuds/angelaiswriting
Summary: With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Dominic’s friends have dragged him into trying a new dating app.
Relationships: Dominic "Bandit" Brunsmeier/Reader
Kudos: 9





	Of Matches and Dates

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's <3
> 
> > Also on my tumblr!

The club is packed — and Dominic is too tired to even care, for once. His back is burning, and there’s a nasty gash on his left thigh that a doctor has stitched up too tightly and that’s constantly making him ground his teeth every time the muscle tenses up.

He’s forgotten whose stupid idea it was to go out clubbing not even three hours after coming back from a mission on the other face of the Earth, but he  _ does _ remember he’s there to be Eli’s wingman just in case his date dumps him last minute. It won’t happen, of course, but the kid still worries when it comes to a pretty lady he’s matched with on Matcher.

Matcher is the latest novelty at the base, or so that’s the impression he’s had ever since his jet landed not so long ago. Even Monika has signed up for an account —  _ It’s great to pass time, Domi! You should download it, it’s free _ , or that’s what she said the second before tearing his phone from his hands to download it herself.

“Here, I brought you drink!” Alexsandr tears him from his musings — and the dull soreness still crawling underneath his skin — and unceremoniously slaps a shot of vodka on the small, high table he’s been leaning against. By the time the glass is halfway to his lips, Dominic has the time to notice half of its contents have sloshed out onto the metal surface of that dingy thing; he doesn’t care: he simply tilts his head back, lets the alcohol wash down his throat and prays it’ll numb everything to a low hum.

“Where is everyone else?” he asks, hissing when someone bumps into his back in passing. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt like every single muscle in his body felt so pulled and tight, but he’s already set up his mind to barge into Harry’s office the next morning and ask for — or  _ demand _ — the longest leave he’s ever thought of asking.

Alex shrugs and quickly empties the shot he has in his right hand, for the one in his left is already empty. The bar is right behind them, though, so they both know they’ll be making back and forth more times than one would rather know. “Somewhere in there,” he replies, jutting his chin in the general direction of the mess of bodies behind Dominic’s back. “Adriano has a date, too, so he ditched us.”

“So did Elias, Monika and Seamus.” He turns around briefly, throws a look around to try and see if he can get a glimpse of the friends they’ve come here with, but miserably fails.

“Stupid dating apps, making men our age third-wheel like this.” Alexsandr groans something in Russian then, but it’s under his breath and Dominic would never be able to tell what that was with the noise in there — he  _ also _ doesn’t speak Russian, he finds himself realizing a minute too late. “But I met the French at the bar, they rented out a VIP room for the night.”

“We should gatecrash it.”

Ten minutes later, eight of which spent downing one drink after the other in the vain attempt to outdrink each other, both men walk into the French’s VIP room behind Gustave Kateb, whose English has already started slurring into French when he doesn’t focus enough.

The French aren’t the only people there: Marius sends Dominic a pleading look as Lion fills his head with his usual bullshit, and a bunch of recruits who’ve somehow had the chance to hang around the more seasoned operators sit on the couch on the far left of the room and listen to what Y/N and Finka are enlightening them with. The two women turn around to greet them and although Dominic’s eyes trail down the plummeting neckline of Y/N’s shimmery top, he still has enough attention to spare to notice how the rookies hang from her lips as she keeps on talking.

Alexsandr’s exclamation of jubilee, however, tears him from the sight of the only one he’s had a crush on for a long time now and there’s nothing he can do to stop the other from dragging him towards the couch Montagne is sitting on with not one, not  _ two _ ,  _ but three _ bottles of vodka on the low table in front of him.

“What do a Russian, a French and a German have in common?” Gilles asks, raising a shot glass and chuckling drunkenly as icy droplets of alcohol trail down the glass and onto the still-bruised skin between his right thumb and forefinger.

“Their hatred for this goddamn dating app?”

But Alex slaps him up the back of his head as he takes the shot their tipsy friend is handing him. “Alcohol!” he booms, making more than a couple of heads turn around before drinking his glass dry as though it didn’t contain but water.

They end up sitting together, Dominic to the right and Alexsandr to the left of Montagne, their knees pressing into each other’s as they joke and drink. They’re the only three in the room that have just come back from a mission abroad, and no one comes to bother them for a long time as they try to relax and let go. The topic of discussion, however, quickly shifts back to the  _ fucking dating app _ .

Matcher seems to be all the rage, and it somehow manages to sneak its way into even the most unassuming conversations. Neither of them would by now be able to assert with utmost certainty if there truly is someone at the base that doesn’t use it — apart from the people that have spent the last two weeks on a mission, completely detached from the civilian world, that is.

“I’ve heard Blitz has already had something like fifteen dates so far, in less than three weeks at that!” Gilles’ English is softened and slurred out by his French, the same French that always comes back every time he goes beyond a certain threshold when it comes to drinking.

“Fifteen?!” Alexsandr almost cries out, comically counting on his fingers until he’s reached the right number, almost as though by doing that, he’ll be able to fully comprehend the extent of Elias’ adventures.

“He’s fucked with only seven of them, though,” adds Dominic, tipping down another shot before leaning back against his seat, spreading his arms on the backrest and letting his hands hang against the cool faux leather.

Yet again, Alex counts on his fingers — up to seven, and then up to fifteen, just to see how big the difference between the two is. “Christ,” is his only comment just before he takes a long sip straight from the bottle, long enough to finish the two fingers of liquid that remain in it.

“Monique made me download it,” and it takes them a minute to put two and two together and realize Gilles is talking about IQ in his frenchified English. “Snatched  _ mon portable _ from my hands and gave it back with that fucking app on my home screen.”

Dominic scoffs, the French’s experience with his colleague hitting closer to home than he would have thought possible before today. “Did the same to me. If you had given her five minutes more, she would’ve created an account for you like she did mine.”

They’re curious, both the French and the Russian, and while Gilles is chill, Dominic knows Alexsandr is not going to let him live this down. So, their quick  _ Show us! _ turns into some rearranging on their seats so that Dominic ends up finding himself trapped between his two friends, looming over him like some vultures.

“Since when do  _ you _ like cooking dates?” asks Alex when the app opens on Dominic’s personal profile page.

“Monika chose everything, said ‘pussy’ isn’t respectable enough as an interest. Cooking dates apparently work better at getting women, or so she says.”

“You sure she didn’t want you to match up with her?”

“Don’t listen to Frenchie, show us who it makes you match with!” Alex’s hand is quick at shooting out, but Dominic is quicker, pulling his phone away so that his now pouting friend can’t get a hold of it.

“ _ I _ ’ll use it. I don’t want you messing up my app.”

“I thought you didn’t like the idea of having it.”

“And I don’t! I’m just bored!”

But he still touches the search icon, and the other two almost hold their breaths as they wait for the shitty reception inside the club to allow the page to fully load and replace the pulsating hearts of the logo to leave their place to profile pictures.

The first is a 37-year-old woman with curly ginger hair and eyes of two different colors — they’re both brown, but there’s some blue in the left one, as well.

“Pretty,” says Gilles just as Dominic reads what her profession is —  _ florist _ . “Match with her.”

But Dom is good — and he tells them that, pushing their hands away from his phone to prevent them from doing things with his app. “Make your own account and stop bugging me about mine,” he replies as his fingers tap the bubble with the golden star icon — not a match, more like a ‘save for later’ and although he’s had plenty of one-night stands, ‘saving’ someone ‘for later’ makes him feel fifty different shades of dirty.

The second woman is South African, a bit too far away, but with his job, he could end up anywhere in the world. So, he saves Bea for later before Alex makes him change his search parameters so that the system would find people closer to his actual location.

There’s a barista he’s seen plenty of times at the pub he and Marius often go to. She’s pretty, on the tall side, with hair cut chin-level short and a tattoo that snakes its way up the side of her neck and that he now sees trails down deeper underneath the low-cut tank top she’s wearing in her profile picture. Matcher says her name is Andrea, so he can now put his curiosity to sleep and stop wondering how he should call her.

Alexsandr taps the two-heart button to match him up with her before he can stop him, and the three of them sit there for a long time — or so at least it seems, with the rest of the party blatantly ignoring them as operators come and go as they please — checking out women and deciding what to do with them. And really, it sounds so bad in Dom’s mind when he puts it into those words — they’re judging someone based on one picture and literally three other facts about them — but that’s still the truth of the thing. Some women end up in the starred ‘save for later’ section — which they’ve found out is much nicer than it seems and it’s just a way to still be able to chat without necessarily match yet —, some get skipped, and Andrea is still the only one in his matches — she still has to match back with him, and deep down Dominic can’t help but wonder how their next encounter at the pub is going to feel like.

It’s endless profiles later, when Montagne stands up to ‘go piss’ — or so he says, kicking finesse out of the window — that a familiar face pops up on the app.

Alex chuckles, almost choking on his hundredth vodka, taken by the surprise of such a sight. “Hey! But that’s —” He’s cut off when Dominic elbows him in his left side, where he knows Alex is bruised — there’s no need to yell Y/N’s name in a room full of people drinking, talking and — he notices when he quickly looks around to make sure no one is paying them any mind — making out in the love-seat in a corner.

Dominic should have expected it, really, Monika  _ did _ tell him everyone and their mother has downloaded Matcher at the base, and that includes Y/N, but he’s still taken aback because he’s had a crush on her for the longest time now and while he has balls of steel and he’s known for it, he still has…  _ problems _ approaching her when it doesn’t come to missions or training.

But by God, is she pretty! Both in-person and in that picture still floating on his screen. There’s a sunflower field behind her and she’s sporting trekking boots, camo shorts, and a white tank top on a dusty, Ukrainian road. He was there, when the picture was taken — seven months ago, during the last mission they had been deployed to together — with a bunch of other operators, of course. They had taken a couple of days off when things had been wrapped and some of them had stayed behind before finally coming back to Hereford.

And there she is, grinning at him from up close — technologically speaking, that is —, dog tags disappearing between her breasts under her tank top and her head tilted to the side, eyes almost squinting against the late-morning sun. There’s everything on her profile bubble — less than ten miles away, her age, her country of origin, and then that vague ‘police’ typed out next to the white icon of a briefcase, a description Monika’s put into his profile as well.

“So?” But Alex is distracted by Gilles coming back and sitting down once again next to Dominic, and he doesn’t continue.

“Found anyone interesting while I was gone?”

“Y/N,” is Alex’s unsolicited reply. “But this chicken won’t do shit about it.”

Dominic groans. “Why do you have to be so annoying? Jesus! There, matched her. You happy now?” he complains, tapping the  _ match! _ bubble with the two hearts before he has much time to overthink. “It’ll make for a good laugh when she opens her app.”

They’re all bored anyway, and he’s known for — almost — always choosing the fun way of doing something. She will match him, send him a  _ haha domi gotcha! great to see u on this app _ — all lowercase, often with that ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ — through the chat feature, and then they’ll be able to laugh it off during training. It could make for a nice sort of inside joke, he muses as he puts his phone away for the night and reaches for the bottle of vodka.

By the time his friends drag him back to the dance floor to try and loosen up their sore muscles, he’s received some matching requests and more than just ‘a few’ messages in his chat from so many different people that he feels his head is spinning.

It’s early morning already when he, Alex and Gilles wait for their Uber to come and pick them up, all of them with more drinks in their body than there is water. The other two have downloaded Matcher for shits and giggles and are now busy sorting through their recommended profiles.

They’ve all warmed up to it — they’ve all used other dating apps in the past, so one more is not a problem, even more when they’re easily bored and with fewer and fewer ideas on how to pass the time they spend between missions.

It’s only when Alexsandr complains that  _ Why am I not getting hot operators too? _ with a comic pout on his face that Dominic’s phone goes off vibrating in the back pocket of his pants for the millionth time. He picks it out to finally delete the stupid app — too many notifications in too little time, and he’s too tired to be patient.

The notification message reads  _ It’s a match! _ with an obnoxious sparkling heart emoji, though, and that suddenly turns his mood around and makes him curious. He hasn’t got a real, mutual match yet, just lots of stars that are probably enough to light up the night sky. So he unlocks his phone, opens the app, and after the rather-cheesy explosion of hearts going off on the screen, he finally sees who’s matched him back and the name both knocks the wind out of him and makes him laugh, all at the same time.

*

He brings it up to her the next day. It’s just after his training session, when he’s walking around the grounds of the Base to take his mind off of things and Y/N is leaving the armory facility. She waves at him, and he can’t but jog up to her to walk with her for a bit.

There’s some small talk, stuff about plans for this next stretch of time before a mission, catching up like friends or colleagues do, and then he drops it —  _ Now that we’ve matched on that dating app, we should go on a date! _ He says it with a smile in his eyes and laughter in his voice, but it all fades into silence when he realizes that what he’s seeing on her face is confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

He frowns. Maybe she doesn’t remember it. “We matched on Matcher last night. I got your notification when I left the club.” It comes off as a question — what could have been an attempt at shooting his shot in a best-case scenario or something done out of fun in any other case, seems to be quickly turning around to bite him in the ass.

The look on her face is of utter mortification as she looks up at him, realization slowly and then quickly catching up on her like some avalanche. ‘Mortified’ is the last thing he would have thought to see on her face, and he’s taken aback, for once he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. Maybe she doesn’t do older. Or she doesn’t do colleagues. Or maybe she sees him as a big brother — most of the recruits seem to somehow see him that way for the first months, despite him never doing anything to even remotely prompt that kind of behavior.

“Shit, I’m so sorry!” she finally says, hiding her face behind her hands. “I was shit-faced last night. Lera and I were fucking around with my app since she says I always get the hot ones, I must’ve done it at that moment. I didn’t think I’d get people from the Base, I’m so sorry. Forget about that, please: I didn’t want to make things weird.”

He’s… bummed, there’s no other way to put it. It kind of stings his pride, in a way, but he sees where she’s coming from. He just… didn’t expect for her to not take it jokingly — after all, they are similar in that, and their sense of humor always makes them find the fun side in almost anything.

“Nah, don’t worry.”

But he’s still thinking about it three days later, and both Marius and Elias, and then Monika, Gilles and Alex as well, have tried to come up with a way to fix it — they don’t exactly know what needs fixing, it’s just a stupid dating app, but the look in Y/N’s eyes is still mortified every time Dominic crosses her path.

It’s only when he’s chilling with Lera and Elias on Wednesday night, discussing possible plans for Valentine’s day, coming up on Sunday, that the topic of Matcher and the apparently dramatic match with Y/N crawls its way into the conversation once more. It’s just the three of them in the lounge room, feet up on the coffee table or on the long part of the L-shaped couch, legs crossed at the ankles.

And for a moment it’s like going back to stupid high school crushes when Lera lets it slip that Y/N is simply too embarrassed to admit that she squealed and giggled like a teenager when she got Domi’s match request over the weekend. That  _ that _ is the reason why she’s so mortified and she — Lera — is tired of trying to convince her that there’s nothing wrong in finding a colleague hot.  _ Brunsmeier  _ is _ a handsome man, I’d be surprised if the thought had never crossed your mind! _ — that’s how she recounts it, glancing at Dominic and shrugging her shoulders.

“She’s just afraid the truth might come out,” she says. “To which I’m not opposed, I’m tired of hearing her babble about it every time she starts doubting herself.”

At first, Dominic’s only reply is a pensive hum as he brings the almost-empty beer bottle to his lips for a sip. “I didn’t think she’d somehow take it personally. I would’ve expected her to joke about it, that’s why I was confused.”

They end up thinking of a plan — send her flowers and chocolates, with a note attached, and then show up at her and Lera’s shared dorm room to take her out on a Valentine’s date. His playful crush isn’t that much of a secret when it comes to his friends, after all: he  _ does _ get drunk —  _ eventually _ — and he does let his tongue loose — loose enough to hint at stuff he wouldn’t exactly boast while sober.

So, the next day, they put their plan into motion. A delivery man delivers Y/N the biggest bouquet of roses Dominic has managed to find on the website of a nearby flower shop at almost one in the morning, and it’s not only a surprise to her, but to all the operators and recruits that have stayed behind in the mess hall after breakfast as well.

They watch as she eyes the bouquet, lips parted, a frown of almost suspicion on her face — and from that table, Lera sends him a knowing smirk and a raise of an eyebrow that seems to tell him that she was  _ not _ expecting such an obnoxious thing.

The exchange doesn’t miss Monika’s eye, and the operator is quick at putting two and two together. She slaps his bicep, and when he turns around to glare at her, almost intimidating her to shut her mouth, she smirks. “Look at you, who would’ve thought?” Her German is hushed, and it makes their fellow German colleagues chuckle, too. “Decided to make a move?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“I told you that app wasn’t that bad!” she adds when Elias tells her how things have come to that.

The next day, Dominic makes sure Lera leaves his box of Swiss pralines on Y/N’s bed — and she promptly texts him back when her roommate and friend finds it after her monthly session in Harry’s office.

When Saturday comes around, Y/N’s confusion has taken the place of the mortified look in her eyes, and Lera has started trying to convince him to come forward before her friend would start thinking of some joke. Y/N’s not the type to get spooked out — a last-minute secret admirer just in time for Valentine’s day delivering gifts is the least dangerous thing she’s probably ever come across, but he knows it’s time to ask her out.

He finds her in the very lounge room Elias and Lera talked him into moving things forward. She’s sitting on the window bench, staring out at the park of the base and at the flour-like snowflakes coming down and twirling in the wind, before it turns into rain before nightfall.

“Hey,” she greets him before he has time to make a sound, seeing his reflection in the windowpane. “If you’re going to tease me for the ginormous bouquet I got the other day like everyone else did, please don’t.” She chuckles, though, and turns around when he sits at the other end of the bench.

“Nah, I won’t be childish this time.” There’s a grin on his face as he pulls his feet up and rests his arms on his bent knees, teasing her own leg with a foot for a moment just to make her laugh. “Have any clues on who the secret admirer is?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “I’m quite sure Lera knows who this is, but I haven’t been able to tear it out of her yet.”

It’s quiet for a while before Dominic starts saying  _ Look, there’s something I _ — before he stops mid-sentence and looks up at her. She’s staring back at him almost expectantly, when someone dashes through the hall and distracts them for a moment.

“I’m sorry that match made you feel the way it did,” he says, “but I’m still glad I sent my request. And I know deep down you are too, you’re just afraid of things going the wrong way.” When she frowns, her lips parting, he scoots closed and lays a hand on her knee. “A little bird told me.”

“Yeah, a Russian one, maybe?” She covers her face with her hands, much like she did at the beginning of the week, before she sighs. “Lera likes to babble.”

“I don’t mind.” His hand gives her knee a gentle squeeze, and he waits for her to look at him again. “It finally gave me the excuse to ask you out on Valentine’s day. If you’re down for it, that is.”

*

On Sunday, he shows up at her door at half-past six, wearing fucking tux pants for once in his life. He’s cleaned up nice — trimmed his beard a bit, combed his hair back with some cream, stole a few drops of Alex’s perfume when he and Gilles made themselves at home in his room while he was getting ready. She’s begged him to skip the roses next time, and so he’s standing there with a bunch of wildflowers in one hand, wondering why  _ the fuck _ there’s butterflies in his stomach.

She’s just as beautiful as ever when she opens the door, and Lera is nowhere to be found when she invites him in so that she can put his flowers in some water. Red dress, black coat, killer heels, painted lips — she almost takes his breath away.

“You’re stunning.” The honesty in his voice makes her stutter for a moment before he lets her give him a hug.

“You’re not any less,” she grins, pecking his cheek before following him outside and then to the garage level.

He makes her ride behind him on his bike, and the dinner at the overpriced fancy restaurant he’s managed to book last-minute passes in a flash. But even despite that, he doesn’t miss the way she warms up — and opens up — the more they chat: long gone is the mortification he knows she’s felt at the idea of possibly having made things awkward or of having given her crush on him away, and they actually find themselves getting to know each other better through tales from both missions and their civilian lives and childhood.

When they’re forced to leave the restaurant to leave their place to the second turn of patrons on such a busy February night, they walk around the center of the city arm in arm, both wrapped up tightly in their jackets and with their helmets in hand. They talk and talk, and the more they do, the more that faint shadow of embarrassment they felt throughout the week evaporates from their shoulders much like the condensation leaving their lips.

Neither of them is in the mood to return to Hereford just yet. It’s nice to be out and about, doing normal things, falling for what Dominic considers a well-thought-out marketing strategy — although he won’t lie by saying he’d rather be doing something else tonight, or spend time with someone else.

“I’m glad you matched me,” she suddenly confesses, the both of them hurrying up to cross the street before the traffic light turns red. “I would’ve never had the guts to. And I’m glad you did what you did and that we’re now here.”

He grins at her, pulling her closer into his side by wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Vodka is the best remedy against bullshitting instead of taking action,” he jokes, and she laughs.

He stares at her as she does, unable to keep in that chuckle.

“Yeah, I’m sure, Sanya always says the same bullshit,” she laughs, shaking her head before pointing at the bowling alley with her helmet, her other arm wrapped securely around his waist. “I don’t wanna go back yet. What do you think about some bowling?”

When they get back at the Base at around three in the morning, Dominic has a rip in the crotch of his pants and they’re both still giggling like kids at the memory of how comically loud the ripping sound seemed when he bent to throw his ball. They were joking around, in the bowling track further from the entrance, when it happened and she had to stand right behind him as he walked back to their booth, both of them laughing loudly, his cheeks burning red in an uncharacteristic moment of embarrassment.

“Bring me your pants when you wake up, I’ll fix them for you,” she chuckles, her hand still wrapped tightly in his.

“We should go bowling again,” he replies instead, looking down at her, now a bit shorter since she’s walking barefoot, her heels in his other hand. “With a proper attire this time, though.”

“Sure, why not?” Her excitement makes him smile, and even in the night lights always on throughout the Base during the night, he can see how her eyes seem to grin up at him. “I’d be ecstatic to watch you lose miserably a second time.”

“You only had luck!” But it’s not a real complaint — after all, he  _ is _ shit at bowling, but he’s  _ loved  _ spending tonight with her and he’d be happy to replicate it more than just once. “And I let you win.”

“Of course.” Her chuckle is low now that they’re in the sleeping quarters.

And although they should go to bed and get ready for the day of training and simulations awaiting for them when they wake up, they still seem to linger, standing there, in front of the door of her dorm, still hand in hand, smiling at each other.

“Thank you for tonight,” she says eventually, taking a step closer to give him a quick good-night hug, and she grabs her heels when he hands them to her.

“Likewise. I really enjoyed it. We should do it again.” He puts the idea out there, but when she smiles sweetly at him all his doubts seem to sizzle and evaporate.

“We should,” she nods, her fingers playing with his. 

“Just ring me up when you’re free from your Matcher dates,” he grins, winking at her, hinting at the quite numerous dates she told him she had since downloading the app.

“Nah, I’m deleting it. I got the one match that matters most, so there’s no reason in keeping on looking.” She balances herself by putting both hands on his shoulders and pecks the corner of his mouth. “Good night, Domi.”

When he opens the door of his room, still grinning, the last thing he’s expecting to find is some of his friends waiting around for him just to know how his date has gone.

“So?” Monika asks, standing up from where she’s been sitting in his desk chair, eyes tired and hair tousled.

“We brought vodka,” Alex grins, raising an almost empty bottle while Gilles points at the empty glasses on the nightstand. “We’ve been waiting for this day for too long!”

“Sorry, man,” Marius says from his bed, both eyes closed and ankles crossed.

“We couldn’t stop them and shooting them dead wasn’t an option,” is what Elias aads, and Dominic knows it’s going to be a  _ long _ night. But when he’s done talking, he knows he’s deleting that goddamn app, too.


End file.
